“Treplin,” said Toppy honestly.
“Treplin,” concluded Simmons. “New bookkeeper, new blacksmith’s helper. Get in the back seat, Miss Pearson. Cover yourself well up with those robes. Bundle in—that’s right. Put the suitcase under your feet. That’s right. All right, Jerry,” he drawled to the driver. “You’d better keep going pretty steady to make it before dark.”
“Don’t nobody need to tell me my business,” said the surly hunchback, tightening the lines; and without any more ado they were off, the snow flying from the heels of the mettlesome bays.
For the first few miles the horses, fresh from the stable and exhilarated to the dancing-point by the sun, air and snow, provided excitement which prevented any attempt at conversation. Then, when their dancing and shying had ceased and they had settled down to a steady, long-legged jog that placed mile after mile of the white road behind them with the regularity of a machine, Toppy turned his eyes toward the girl in the back seat.
He quickly turned them to the front again. Miss Pearson, snuggled down to her chin in the thick sleigh-robes, her eyes squinting deliciously beneath the sharp sun, was studying him with a frankness that was disconcerting, and Toppy, probably for the first time in his life, felt himself gripped by a great shyness and confusion. There was wonderment in the girl’s eyes, and suspicion.
“She’s wise,” thought Toppy sadly. “She knows I’ve been hitting it up, and she knows I made up my mind to come out here after I talked with her. A fine opinion she must have of me! Well, I deserve it. But just the same I’ve got to see the thing through now. I can’t stand for her going out all alone to a place with a reputation like Hell Camp. I’m a dead one with her, all right; but I’ll stick around and see that she gets a square deal.”
Consequently the drive, which Toppy had hoped would lead to more conversation and a closer acquaintance with the girl, resolved itself into a silent, monotonous affair which made him distinctly uncomfortable. He looked back at her again. This time also he caught her eyes full upon him, but this time after an instant’s scrutiny she looked away with a trace of hardness about her lips.
“I’m in bad at the start with her, sure,” groaned Toppy inwardly. “She doesn’t want a thing to do with me, and quite right at that.”
His tentative efforts at opening a conversation with the driver met instant and convincing failure.
“I hear they’ve got quite a place out here,” began Toppy casually.